Each semester Lang College invites distinguished artists to work with students in a variety of venues. Through Visiting Artists programming, ART WORK discussions, and Dance Residencies, Lang students explore practicing artist's creative processes, discuss current issues, and have an intimate view of some of the most celebrated works currently happening in the city.

ART WORK

ART WORK is ongoing series that hosts innovative artists to speak about their artistic proces, giving students access to the intimate workings of some of the most influential artists practicing in the city today. Artists detail their creative process, speak about new productions, and examine their most famous works. The series is curated by Bonnie Marranca, Professor of Theatre in the Arts Division.

John Jesurun is a media artist, playwright, director, and designer who has created works in theater, film, musical theater, video, and digital media. His productions have been staged in many well-known downtown theaters in New York City as well as Europe, Mexico, and Asia. Jesurun's work is a crossover between theater, visual arts, design, and literature. He is a MacArthur Fellow whose plays are published in Shatterhand Massacree and Other Plays. Watch on livestream.

A member of the National Theatre of the United States of America, Yehuda Duenas is the director of The Ascent, a live-action performance installation that allows participants to levitate 30 feet in the air through interactive sound and lighting via their own brainwaves. Watch on livestream.

Chris Perry is an architect who works in design, landscape, and architecture and heads the Geofutures program in Architecture and Urbanism at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His immersive environments, exhibition spaces, and futuristic designs bring together new ideas in design, technology, ecology, and art. He co-founded pneumastudio, whose forthcoming publications include Theories of the Environment: Posthuman Territory and Post-Sustainable: Blueprints for a Green Planet.Watch on livestream.

Jonah Bokaer is a choreographer and media artist who is also the co-founder of Chez Bushwick and Center for Performance Research, innovative performance spaces in Brooklyn that have hosted a new generation of dance artists and performers. Bokaer combines strategies of collaboration, activism, and public dialogue. He has worked with Merce Cunningham, John Jasperse, David Gordon, Robert Wilson, and Tino Seghal. Watch on livestream.

Douglas Dunn is a choreographer and performer, well known in the contemporary dance world for the wit and elegance of his style. He is also the author of the recent book, Dancer Out of Sight, a collection of his writings. He discussed dance, dance writing, and offered students a glimpse into his working process. Watch on livestream.

Brian Rogers is the artistic director and founder of The Chocolate Factory, a performance space in Long Island City. His piece, Hot Box, will be in the Crossing the Line Festival this fall. He visits Eugene Lang College to discuss his artistic process, as well as his past and current work. Watch on livestream.

Theodora Skipitares is a visual artist and theater director who trained as a sculptor and theater designer. Drawing on Western and Asian traditions she works with life-size puppet and miniature figures, which become her performers. She has created twenty-three plays, often using video and classics. She visits Eugene Lang College to discuss her artistic process and current work. Watch on livestream.

Playwright, director, and designer Kenneth Collins is the founder and artistic director of Temporary Distortion. This New York City based theater company pushes the boundaries of theater with their unsettling performances that make use of live performers, film, and visual art to create dreamlike double worlds.

Mr. Collins is joined by his video and music collaborators, William Cusick and John Sullivan, for this discussion of their artistic process, collaboration, and use of technology.

Cynthia Hopkins is a creator and performer of unique semi-autobiographical musical performance works, including "Accidental Nostalgia" and "The Truth: A Tragedy." She is currently making a new work that addresses the climate crisis, titled "This Clement World."

Annie-B Parsons and Paul Lazar are the artistic directors of Big Dance Theater, founded in New York City in 1991, one of the most innovative dance troupes in the world today. They are representative of the multidisciplinary artists who define our era, crossing over easily into theater, dance, art, design, literature, and media. They discuss their new production, their past work, and their artistic process.

John Kelly is a performance and visual artist, whose work has received critical acclaim nationally and internationally. His performance works have focused consistently on the character of creative genius and developed around either autobiographical or historical characters. In his visit to Eugene Lang College, he speaks to students about his artistic practice and leads them in an interactive presentation of some current projects.

Joseph Diebes - April 12, 2011

JOSEPH DIEBES creates works that fuse visual art, music, and performance. In 2010 his solo exhibition, Diablo en Musica, was installed at the Paul Rogers/9 W Gallery in Chelsea (NY). Since then he has created sound installations – often with a substantial visual component – for art galleries, museums, and public spaces around the world. For this event, he discussed and showed excerpts from his vast catalog of work.

Eiko and Koma - March 8, 2011

Choreographer-dancers Eiko and Koma are famous for groundbreaking performances and site-specific works that stretch the boundaries of the art. At The New School, they discussed their Retrospective Project (2009-2012), which highlights works created over several decades, and showed documentary videos created for the project. For more information, visit www.eikoandkoma.org.

Wave Farm - November 19, 2010

In 2005, Galen Joseph-Hunter and Tom Roe, co-directors of the transmission arts organization free103point9 in Brooklyn, acquired 29 acres in the foothills of Catskill Mountain Park. There, amid meadows and ponds, they established Wave Farm, a site for artist residencies, performances and exhibitions, a sculpture garden, and a planned study center. This September, a community FM radio station, WGXC: Hands On Radio, was launched at Wave Farm. Galen Joseph Hunter, has curated transmission arts events internationally, most recently [silence] at Gigantic ArtSpace in New York City (2007) and Off the Grid at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase (2008). Tom Roe is a sound artist who performs with transmitters and receivers.

Anne Bogart - October 18, 2010

ANNE BOGART is the artistic director of SITI Company, one of the best-known contemporary theaters in the United States, which she founded in 1992 with Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki. Productions she had directed for SITI include Antigone, Hotel Cassiopeia, bobrauschenbergamerica, Freshwater, Culture of Desire, Miss Julie, and Orestes. Her honors include Obie and Bessie awards and a Guggenheim fellowship. She is a renowned teacher of the influential "viewpoints" approach to acting. She is Professor of Theatre at Columbia University where she heads the Graduate Directing Program.

Erik Ehn - April 6, 2010

ERIK EHN is a widely admired playwright. He is author of The Saint Plays (an ongoing cycle), Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling, and The Wolf at the Door, to name a few of his plays. Now head of Playwriting at Brown University, he is a prominent teacher of writing, has taught at the University of Iowa, UC-San Diego, and Naropa, and is former Dean of the School of Theatre at Cal Arts. He is a graduate of New Dramatists.

Meredith Monk - February 19, 2009

MEREDITH MONK is a composer, singer, director/choreographer and creator of new opera, music theater works and films, who for more than four decades has been influential in defining the new vocabularies of performance and media. She is a pioneer in what is now called "extended vocal technique" and "interdisciplinary performance." Writing in the November 9, 2009 issue of The New Yorker on her recent Songs of Ascension triumph at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival, Alex Ross observed: "She represents a kind of reboot of tradition. She may loom ever larger as the new century unfolds, and later generations will envy those who got to see her live."

Lang invites a guest artist every year to either restage a classic work by a modern dance luminary or create a new work on our students. Residencies often include the technique, history, and life of the artist and their work, including any historical, social, political, or cultural context. In addition to research, writing, and critical thinking, classes with guest artists involve intensive rehearsals to restage or create new repertory which is performed in the fall or spring dance performance.

John Jasperse creates work that challenges and engages audiences in rich and innovative aesthetic and intellectual experiences, expanding the form of contemporary dance and its relevance to the greater culture. He worked in collaboration with students to create an original work.

Trisha Brown is one of the most widely acclaimed choreographers to emerge from the postmodern era. The Trisha Brown Dance Company has presented the work of its legendary artistic director for over 40 years. Members of the company worked with Lang students to restage an original work.

luciana achugar — Spring 2011

Luciana Achugar is a Brooklyn based choreographer from Uruguay. Since 2002 achugar has created seven independent works which have been presented in Uruguay, Cambridge, Minneapolis and throughout NY at venues such as Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, The Kitchen, PS1 Museum of Contemporary Art, CANADA Gallery, Dixon Place, etc. Her last work PURO DESEO which premiered at The Kitchen in April 2010 received a NY Bessie Award. She is a 2010 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Artist Grantee. Luciana worked collaboratively with Eugene Lang College dance students to create Every Breath We Take, Every Move We Make, You'll be Watching Us…, shown at the spring 2011 dance production.

Anna Sokolow Residency — Spring 2010

The Anna Sokolow Dance Residency was an exploration of the life and work of world renowned modern dancer, choreographer, and teacher, Anna Sokolow. In celebration of Anna's 100th Birthday, Jim May, Artistic Director of the Sokolow Theatre Foundation, conducted workshops and lectures examining the historical and social context of Sokolow's work through research, rare videos, and photographs. The major component of the residency was the reconstruction of Lyric Suite, the 1953 classic modern dance work with music by Alban Berg. The work was performed at the Ailey Citigroup Theater in New York City as part of Lang's spring dance performance.

William Forsythe Residency — Spring 2009

Taught by Forsythe dancers and collaborators, Jill Johnson and Mario Zambrano, the residency explored the life and work of renowned choreographer, William Forsythe. The residency included a series of intensive workshop master classes during the first three weeks. Students learned Forsythe movement technologies, including a coordinative training series, task-based improvisation, and composition modalities. Discussion and lectures about William Forsythe's approach to dancing and choreographic development, including stage, lighting, and text designs, were included. In the second half of the residency, students collaborated with Johnson and Zambrano to create an original Forsythe-inspired work based on the essential principals and movement phrases from one of Forsythe's renowned choreographic works, One Flat Thing Reproduce. The work was performed at the end of the semester in the 2009 spring dance performance.

Wally Cardona, Guest Choreographer, Almost Real – Spring 2008

In spring 2008, BESSIE award winning choreographer, Wally Cardona created a new work on Lang Dance students titled Almost Real. Cardona auditioned dancers in the fall semester and selected 13 dancers to work with ranging from freshman to seniors. Students were active participants in a process that included research, experimentation, creation, and setting of new material. The environment where the action took place was important in choreographer Wally Cardona's recent body of work. In Almost Real, the environment to be navigated was the space and entities present in the space itself: its history, currency, and potential. Continuing his interest in the making of from nothing, Cardona asked the performers to start from nothing, return to nothing, and begin again, offering an experience in impermanence that was more ghost-like than solid. Original music for the performance was by New York composer Phil Kline. The work debuted in the spring dance performance on May 2 and 3, 2008 at Ailey Citigroup Theater in New York City.

Continuing the legacy of restaging American modern dance classics, the Lang dance program celebrated the work of legendary choreographer, José Limón. The Limon Residency was designed to investigate the training techniques and repertory of modern dance pioneers, José Limón and his mentor, Doris Humphrey. Ann Vachon, Director of the Limon Institute taught the first eight weeks of the semester providing background on the life and work of Limon and Humphrey. The course examined the historical and cultural context of Limón and Humphrey's work to better understand its innovation and influence. The lectures included viewings of archival videotapes, readings of critical commentary, and excerpts from Limón's memoir. Students also studied the Limón technique with Ann Vachon and took classes led by former and current Limón Company members.

The Martha Graham Residency, Steps in the Street - Spring 2006

Historical context by Ellen Graff / Restaged by Yuriko

In the early 1930s, Martha Graham taught, rehearsed, performed, and created seminal pieces in the New School studio at 66 West 12th Street. Years later, the dance hall at The New School was dedicated to her. Graham, along with Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, and dance critic John Martin shaped the history of American modern dance through a series of lecture-demonstrations and performances at The New School.

In commemoration of the Martha Graham Dance Company's 80th Anniversary and the 20th Anniversary of Eugene Lang College, the dance program commemorated the legendary choreographer's work. The Martha Graham Residency was designed not only to teach an exemplary piece of Graham repertory, but also to explore Graham's work within its historical and political framework. In both Ellen Graff's and Yuriko's pedagogy, equal importance was placed upon the intensive Graham movement technique and its place within American history and culture.

Ellen Graff, former Graham dancer and director of programs at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, worked with the students for the first eight weeks of the residency. Graff focused on integrating intensive work in Martha Graham technique with an overview of her life and work, focusing on the social, historical, and political significance of her dances. Particular emphasis was placed on the technique of the 1930s, the movement vocabulary central to the 1936 dance Steps in the Street, and the political and historical forces influencing its creation.

Yuriko, Martha Graham's former soloist and rehearsal director, worked with a cast of twelve students for six weeks to restage the celebrated 1936 work, Steps in the Street. Yuriko coached the cast in intensive rehearsals to gain a deeper understanding of the intentions and emotion behind the movement.

Visiting Artists

The visiting artist is a distinguished professional from the arts world whose work is multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary in nature. They work with our students in a variety of classroom lectures and discussions, public presentations, exhibits, workshops, and master classes. Their work reflects the values we emphasize in the arts at Lang - new forms of collaboration, experimentation, and a commitment to artistic excellence.

John Ensor Parker – Visiting Artist in InterArts - Fall 2011

John Ensor Parker is a painter and video/new media artist whose work draws upon both analytical and primitive processes. Inherent in his work is a holistic balance of both science and art. He studied physics and mathematics and worked as a mechanical engineer several years before devoting his full efforts to art. In addition to extensive solo and group exhibitions, he has created large-scale public art works such as To the People of Orlando, a permanent public artwork adorning a full city block in Orlando, Florida. In addition he has done several large-scale videomapping projections, including a recent project at the New Museum. He is currently working on multiple new-media projects and a video-mapping project for the Manhattan Bridge. As Lang's Visiting Artist in fall 2011, he will lead the Art-Science Workshop course on the Silk Cocoon Project. An exhibit of this work will be on view in the third floor Skybridge Gallery.

Eiko Otake —Spring 2011

Since 1972, Eiko Otake and her partner Takashi Koma Otake have been creating unique and riveting movement theater using stillness, shapes, light, and sound. Their subjects are elemental. Their message is pitiless and yet humanistic. Both their choreography and stagecraft are characterized by bold, highly theatrical strokes. The result is stark, infused with relentless stillness that subverts and transcends our everyday notions of time and space. Eiko & Koma want the vulnerability of their own dancing bodies to invite the audience's empathy. At Eugene Lang College, the artist taught two movement workshops, open to all students, presented her work and artistic process through an ART WORK lecture, and led a post-performance discussion following their installation at Baryshnikov Arts Center, Naked: A Living Installation.

Liz Swados – Fall 2010

Though Elizabeth Swados is perhaps best known for her Broadway and international hit Runaways, she has composed, written and directed for over thirty years. Her works include the Obie Award winning Trilogy at La Mama and Alice at the Palace with Meryl Streep at the New York Shakespeare Festival. Her work has been performed on Broadway, off Broadway, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Carnegie Hall, and at sites all over the world. At Eugene Lang College, she shared her creative process, working methods, and vocal techniques with students through a series of workshops that culminated in a new dramatic oratorio, Triangle: From the Fire. The oratorio is a commemoration of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911, in which 146 garment workers, most of them teenage immigrant girls, died trying to escape a raging fire on the upper floors of a building on Washington Square. The piece premiered at the historic Judson Church on Washington Square in March 2011 for the centennial of the fire and was shown at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Either/Or – Spring 2010

Either/Or is a cutting-edge contemporary music ensemble based in New York City. Founded in 2004 by pianist/composer Richard Carrick and percussionist David Shively, Either/Or focuses on compelling new and recent works for unconventional ensemble formations rarely heard elsewhere. The group draws upon its roster, featuring some of New York's leading interpreters, to present intense chamber music alongside larger ensemble works. E/O has performed to critical acclaim at Miller Theatre, Merkin Concert Hall, The Kitchen, MATA Festival, the Austrian Cultural Forum, and ICA:Boston, in addition to frequent appearances at experimental music venues such as The Stone, Roulette, and Issue Project Room. At Eugene Lang College, the ensemble focused on their spring concert series, held from February 25-26, 2010, at the Tenri Cultural Institute. Students researched and studied the works to be performed, including the premiere of a new opera by composer Chaya Czernowin, and attended open rehearsals by the ensemble.

Eve Mosher – Fall 2009

Eve Mosher grew up on the borders of urban sprawl, watching the daily disintegration of the "wild" in the face of suburban housing and strip malls. Now she creates large-scale public projects based on complex interactions of human and natural environments. Eve's work is outside of traditional art practices and engages the public in an active role, connecting people with urban landscapes. Seeding the City connects social networks with green roof initiatives. A previous project, HighWaterLine, mapped the impact of global warming on the New York City coastline. At Eugene Lang College, the artist introduced her latest project, Seeding the City, through a public lecture. She also conducted a series of workshops for students of Eugene Lang College. Together, they explored ways of using private spaces collectively for purposes of public remediation of the natural environment.